”Grant’s Stock Picks” Capital Markets Scam? Or a Legitimate Company?

SASKATCHEWAN- ATTENTION all CEO’s and IR agents in the capital market space, from the OTC to the CSE and beyond. This is a long read but may be worth your time.

I’m not one to write articles like this, but the capital market space is tough enough for micro and small cap stocks, so if I can save just one company from being bullied into a corner and making a mistake, this article will be worth the effort in my eyes.

There’s a group who operate under “Grant’s Stock Picks” led by someone under the alias Grant Galloway. You are approached by a gmail account who emails you to let you know that Grant has his “group” accumulating sizable positions in your stock.

As a CEO or IR agent, you are pleased and very thankful so you entertain the conversation and work at growing the relationship. They then proceed to set you up with Grant’s fundamental analysis guru “Stuart Alastair” to go over your stock info. 

They then dictate a target share price hundreds of percentage points higher than your current stock price in an attempt to get you excited.

Obviously, that’s a tall order for anyone but they promise that Grant can bring in approximately $15M USD of buying in 3 months. All you need to do is sign the contract for $40,000 USD / Month.

Now, anyone in their right mind would like to do some due diligence on this group as $120,000 USD is a lot of money to dish out over a 3 month time frame. 

So I had asked questions, asked for references, asked to see previous workings etc.. but Mr. Galloway took offense to this and said he would not spill some of that information so I politely declined his services as the information I received did not add up.

Red Flag #1: When you are a lower volume stock, you tend to know where your volume comes from at all times. They had not acquired any sort of position in the stock.

Red Flag #2: The demand of a signed contract before giving references. But he would provide previously signed contracts upon allocating the budget towards his services.

Red Flag #3: No website, all operating under gmail accounts.

The list goes on.. but it is not done. I had begun reaching out to other CEO’s and IR agents in the field to verify any credibility behind Grantsstockpicks. 

This is not the first time they have deployed this tactic of backing a company into a corner and threatening the selling of stock if a contract was not signed. It did not take me long before I found out they have done this to multiple companies in the field.

Our stock had begun to fall slightly after I had politely declined Grants services and I was met with an email saying that his group had picked up more stock and would be selling if it continues to go down. 

He had asked what plans we had to turn things around, and after filling him in on our strategy and thanking him for reaching out, I was met with a very unprofessional email using extremely vulgar language and again more threats to sell stock. After that, we decided to share our story to a wider audience.

Please be aware of this, the latest tactic in capital markets, and always ask the appropriate questions.

Tyler Muir is a capital markets specialist based in Saskatoon in the Saskatchewan province of Canada. Mr. Muir started his career in the capital markets as an investor first and foremost. Today, his company TMM Capital Advisory, helps small cap companies succeed and grow into their full potential and also represent the many retail investors to ensure they are treated fairly and equally. You can contact him at [email protected]